Earlier this month, former Microsoft and Google employee James Whittaker made waves on the Internet when he revealed why he left Google suddenly to rejoin Microsoft. Writing on his blog site, he stated that in his opinion, Google had changed in the time he worked there from a company dedicated to innovation to "an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus."
Now Whittaker has written yet another blog post that is basically the opposite side of his journey; namely, why he decided to rejoin Microsoft, this time as a web futurist.
So why come back to a big company like Microsoft, when a smaller organization could possibly be a bigger fit? Whittaker states that one of the reasons is having lots of talented people. He states:
The talent at big companies is abundant. That reason alone should explain anyone"s choice to work for any big company. Who doesn"t want to be surrounded by smart people all day? That"s why startups work so hard to hire big company talent away. That"s why big companies create tugs-of-war over top performers, because they all have them.
He also says that big companies can have the scale to work on big problems and the reach to offer products across the globe.
Whittaker feels that Microsoft is making strides to use its talent, scale and reach " ... to be a disruptor. They aren"t beholden to revenue streams or walled gardens. They stand to benefit the most from such a disruption."
While Whittaker says that not everything about Microsoft is perfect (meetings at the company can be too long and are held too often, according to him), he does see a number of changes at the company compared when he worked there last time. He states:
When I joined in 2006 the company was centered around Windows and Office. Today there is a new main street in Redmond and it houses the studios, not offices but studios, of the Xbox team. This change is more than symbolic. Windows and Office, far from sacrificial lambs, have clearly undergone some sort of genetic re-engineering. I have yet to fully grasp what they have done and how they have done it but their mojo is undeniable.